Do Know Harm
by JPalmerGirl
Summary: The Team learns more about their M.E than they ever thought possible when Jimmy comes into work one day and finds a young redheaded boy in too big clothes, lying on the floor and struggling to breathe...with no Ducky in sight.


Eleven year old Donald 'Ducky' Mallard was on his way to secondary school when he felt the ice underneath his feet quaver slightly. That in and of itself was strange. It was in the dead of winter and the preteen had to walk across the frozen Lock Ness river to be able to reach the school in time. Technically, he wasn't allowed to do so, but he hopped the fence and did it anyway. The Lock was always good and icy in the winter, so he knew that he wasn't going to fall in unless he did something stupid. The year was 1944, World War 11 was still heavily underway. It was a scary time for the nearly twelve year old, his father and older brothers Cole and Alastair were off at War and he alone was left to protect their mother, even after she went to work at the factory on most days. He did anything that he could to help, the boy would collect scrap metal whenever he could and sell it to the workers down near the west hall. Everything was rationed and he couldn't truly remember a time when the classrooms at school weren't half-empty, some parents had voted to send their children away to a safer place, where there was no desperate need for bomb shelters. He'd forgotten a time when he didn't see sallow faced students like himself with over prominent ribs and cheekbones. War was hard and everyone had to be ready, ready for whatever blow may come their way next. Ducky was already planning to enlist like his brothers in five years time. Scotland's Blitz had terrified them all, especially the boys in the Highlands. They were Blitzed because of Glasgow. Glasgow had many factories. There were shipyards along the River Clyde and cargo ships gathered in the river to form convoys. When the Axis caught wind of them...they bombed, hundreds of people were killed. Many more were left homeless.

Ducky wanted to hurry and get to class a bit early, that was why he'd gone on The Lock. He was supposed to tape over Teacher's windows before class started, there was a good reason for it. In an air raid, the blast-force of a bomb exploding could shatter windows along a street or in a school. Tape across the windows stopped the glass shattering into thousands of pieces, and causing injuries to himself and other students. The eleven year old shivered as a particularly cold gust of wind nearly bowled him over. His uniform trousers and jacket had been teared and darned so many times that they provided no protection against the freezing wind. That was when the ice quavered again under his feet and he felt an ominous cracking noise sound through the frigid air. The preteen stopped dead in his tracks, silently praying for the ice to hold.

It didn't.

He'd known that it wouldn't.

He was falling then and he crashed through the splintered ice like it was nothing more than wet paper. The young boy instantly became engulfed in the frigid water below. He kicked and screamed, but all it did was cause bubbles to cloud his already murky vision and the icy water to burn his lungs and nose. He sputtered and choked violently as he tried to keep himself afloat, his heavy rucksack and clothes were weighing him down...but he couldn't just let them go. He needed them. Ducky let out another choked sob as water filled his mouth, his desperate gasp for air had been unsuccessful and he could feel the cold numbing his limbs and making it harder for him to keep himself afloat. The icy water felt like razor sharp knives that were being repeatedly shoved into his waiting flesh. He needed to keep fighting, but the cold was already taking hold of him. He faintly wondered if he was crying. Was that even possible when underwater? His ears were pounding along with his head and everything sounded so muffled and far away, the water clouding his hearing as well as his once very good sight. He'd once thought that drowning was painless...as easy as falling asleep. He was wrong. It was the most painful thing that the boy had ever experienced, it was as if a thousand hot pokers were being forced into his waiting lungs. His blue lips were twisted in a silent scream of agony that no one heard.

"Donald, darling! It's time to get up for school!"

Ducky blinked at the sound of his Mammy's voice. He was standing in the kitchen, but it was happier and full of life...more so than he'd ever seen in it. His lanky big brother Alastair was cramming food into his mouth, more than they would've had in a week and he was smiling, as if inviting his youngest brother to join in. Cole was grinning cheekily as he sat on the window ledge in the corner, the one that Mammy had always used for her darning needles, had once been his seat. Da was at the front of the table, reading the daily paper and smiling, offering Ducky the seat beside him. The whole scene was bathed in a golden and yellowy light, almost as if he was in Heaven. Had he died? If he had, he wasn't totally sure that he would've minded. Heaven looked great. Just as Ducky was about to enter the Heavenly scene, he heard a muffed voice talking to him from somewhere that sounded heart-wrenchingly faraway.

The voice was screaming desperately, but Ducky had no idea what it was saying. Then he felt a sharp pain in his chest and all of a sudden the water was rushing back to him and he couldn't breathe again. His heart was pounding in his ears like the sound of the bombs he would hear during the air raids. He could almost hear his Mammy's screams over them. But when he tried to scream, no sound came out and he felt the cold tendrils of The Lock wrap around his prone form and begin to drag him farther down. The icy fingers pulled at him, at his clothes, at his hair. Then the world was as dark as a blackout in the Highlands...he was gone.

-TimeSkip-

"Doctor! Doctor, please wake up! What's happened to you?!"

Ducky blinked open misty blue eyes that were shadowed with his thick, uncut, red curls. He was shaking, that much was for certain as he lay on the cold of something that he assumed was the ice of The Lock. Then he tried to see, but couldn't...everything was so oddly blurry. The boy raised a shaking hand to tug the unneeded pair of glasses from his face and toss them aside. Much too weak to do much else, he studied the room around him, because it most certainly had to be a room, there was a white ceiling above him and young man with dark curly hair and glasses looming over him. Had the man saved him from the Lock and brought him here? Ducky almost wanted to open his mouth and thank the man and he would've done so, if it hadn't been for the way that the young man lifted him up and pressed him to his chest. The scottish lad's already bruised lungs gave a groan as they were smashed once again.

"Doctor, thank goodness you're alright! What happened?"

That exclamation made the youngest Mallard boy's left eyebrow arch upwards in astonishment. Why was this man calling him a 'doctor' and why didn't he know that Ducky had fallen in The Lock? This made the young redhead stiffen and try weakly, to push the man's clingy arms away from him. He needed to get home to his Mammy, she would be worried if he didn't return home from school soon and he'd need to apologize to Teacher about not fixing her windows for the next air raid. Where was he anyway...? He would've asked the man but then remembered the things that Teacher taught them in school, 'Careless Talk Costs Lives', A spy might be listening! What if they man was a spy from the Axis who'd brought him here for something evil? So Ducky kept his lips shut tight and his eyes downcast. He just wanted his Mammy is all. The young man stood and offered Ducky a hand up, one that he didn't take. He merely heaved himself off the ground and nearly fell over from the sheer length and mass of the clothes he was wearing, a huge pair of pants that he needed to wrap around himself twice to keep on, a white coat that dragged behind him like a cape and a red/yellow bow tie that hung like a noose around his thin neck. The shoes had slipped off his feet long ago and he resolved to just walk around barefoot.

He told himself that he was going to be strong and stubborn against these spies but the moment a pair of doors opened by themselves. He yelped and clung to the young man's thigh with all his might, just like a toddler to it's Mammy. There was so many things that he didn't know existed. All he could be sure of was that he wasn't in Scotland anymore. The young man led him into a metal box and pressed a single button, before the machine started to move upwards with them inside. Ducky screamed and buried his shaking face in the man's thigh, his tiny hands fisted in the cloth. He knew that the rationing had stunted his growth, so he was quite small. When the strange machine stopped, the young man led them out and onto some soft carpet as he yelled into the bustling room.

"Guys! I think we may have a problem!"

Two men looked up, the one who was closer had light ginger colored hair and wide green eyes and the other had tan skin and dark hair and eyes. A woman looked up also, she had curly dark hair and olive toned skin and they all looked at the young man, but not at Ducky who's stomach was sinking like a ship. Just how many spies was he going to meet?! The dark haired man spoke first as he stood.

"Just how big of a problem, Palmer?"

So the young man he was clutching's name was Palmer. Not exactly the scary name of a spy but he supposed that it would have to do. The young man who's name was now Palmer, looked down at Ducky, studying him for a moment before speaking, "Maybe seven or eight..." Ducky scowled inwardly, he was eleven! Just really small. The boy tugged sharply on Palmer's pant leg, prompting the man to look down at him. The boy flashed ten with both his hands, then one with his right. Palmer's lips formed a surprised 'oh' shape before clearing the throat and restating the exclamation. "Actually, he says he's eleven." That statement made the dark haired woman and the ginger haired man stand up and begin to move towards them. But not before a silver haired man nearly bowled them over.

"Palmer!"

He barked in surprise, then his face blanched as he set his sights on Ducky. The two men and woman wasted no time hurrying to their boss' side when they saw his expression of utter surprise and shock. Ducky made sure to keep silent and his head downcast, one small hand still clutching at Palmer's pants. The dark haired man spoke first.

"Is that...?"

"Ducky?"

The ginger haired man finished the sentence for him and Ducky bit his lip to keep from responding, he had to keep Mammy and the others safe, he couldn't risk letting them know anything else about him. But he did give them a tiny nod of recognition. Then he felt a gentle hand placed under his chin, and his face was soon even with that of the kneeling silver haired man who cursed under his breath and stood, turning to Palmer. Who was also staring at Ducky in shock, the scottish boy really just wanted to go home to his Mammy. But even the boy started in shock as the silver haired man growled at Palmer, making the young man quiver under his rock hard gaze.

"What happened?!"

He growled and Palmer blanched as he began to stutter. "I don't know... I found him like this laying on the floor of autopsy...his lips were blue and he couldn't breathe. I gave him CPR and brought him back, but he hasn't said a word since." It was almost unearthly to the rest of Team Gibbs, this child who was supposed to be a younger version of the polymath that they all knew and loved, had yet to speak a single word to any of them. It was strange and otherworldly to say the least.

"Wait...so is he an older Ducky in a younger body? Or a younger Ducky in his younger body?"

"Probably the second one, I'm not sure if he know's where he is."

The dark haired man and the ginger haired man both spoke in turn. What were these spies talking about? He was just Ducky, there was no older or younger about it. He wasn't a doctor, he was an eleven year old scottish boy in 1944, what else was there to say? What on earth did these spies want from him? He just wanted to go home. He thought of his Mammy's warm embrace, of his Da's constant aroma of mint tea leaves and tobacco smoke, of the sound of his brothers bickering, of their laughter. He pined for them, all of them and he wondered if he'd ever see them again. Tears prickled in the corners of his forget-me-not blue eyes and he sniffled slightly, rubbing his fists against his closed eyes. The hum of conversation grew silent like the dead air of a wireless radio and Ducky felt a gentle hand placed on his shoulder. But this hand was different from the last, for when he looked up, he was met by a pair of shamrock green eyes. The ginger haired man was the one attempting to comfort him.

"I'm Tim McGee, nice to meet you. What would you like for me to call you?"

McGee was a good Irish name. He'd met some very good Irishmen in his time, like the hardworking men down at the wharf who would smile and wave to Ducky as he would pass with his Mammy. He felt like he could trust this man, Irishmen weren't spies. So he spoke in a small voice, his heavy Highland Scottish burr present as always, "You can call me Ducky, Mr. Tim. My friends at secondary call me Ducky." The ginger haired man smiled a genuine grin, that seemed to be infectious because soon Ducky was grinning as well. "So you're eleven? Nearly twelve?" Ducky nodded at McGee's question, who accepted it as a chance to go on. "What are planning to do when you turn twelve?" Ducky wasn't sure just what McGee had been expecting as an answer, he was going to do what every twelve year old boy does, go and work in the factory till he's fourteen, then go off to war.

"Go work at the factory, then join the army in two years time."

At Ducky's answer, the Irishman blanched. "But you'd only be fourteen." Ducky arched an eyebrow at the man's answer. Why did he sound so overly surprised? "So? They need boys for the War. I want to beat some Nazis and help protect Scotland! Like my Da and my brothers!" At his answer, the whole team seemed to pale and it was Palmer who spoke in a small quivering voice..."Nazis?" Ducky nodded in assurance and was surprised as McGee lunged forwards and wrapped his strong arms around the scottish boy's skinny form.


End file.
